by Lisa Childs
He should have stayed with the other agents—in the midst of the investigation. But he followed her instead as she climbed the stairs to the oh-so-pink room. He had to make sure that she was really okay.
“You’re not in the way,” he said.
“Someone obviously thinks so,” she said. “Or why would they have hired someone to get rid of me?”
“Now that we know who you are, we can figure out the motive,” he explained. “We can find out who’s behind these attacks on you.”
She flinched. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“We have to know so we can stop him.” He touched her face, skimming his fingers across her silky cheek. “And we will stop him.” Almost as much as he hated her being in danger, he hated that she was somehow holding herself responsible for that danger—for someone wanting to kill her.
She thought she’d made someone hate her, but he doubted that was possible. She was more likely to make someone love her—even though he had no business falling for her. Not when she wore another man’s ring. Not when he’d sworn to himself that he would fall for no one and focus only on his job.
He had to do that now. If Dalton hadn’t heard the guy sneaking around downstairs, he might have gotten to her—might have killed them all while they slept. No, Dalton had to stay focused.
* * *
THE KILLER NEVER MADE it to a hospital or a clinic. Dalton found him lying on a blood-soaked mattress in a seedy motel room. Like the dining room, half the furniture in the room had been smashed—along with the TV and a lamp that lay shattered on the threadbare carpet.
“Who is he?” he asked the clerk who had called police because he’d noticed a blood trail leading from the parking lot to the door of this room.
The long-haired young man just blinked at him in confusion. “I don’t know.”
“How did he sign in when he registered at the desk and got his key?”
“John Smith.”
Dalton snorted. “I don’t suppose you took a copy of his driver’s license or his credit card.”
The clerk’s face reddened. “He paid cash and signed in as John Smith.”
Dalton asked the state troopers who were gathering evidence, “Did you find a wallet?”
One of the troopers shook her head. “No, sir. No cell phone—nothing. It looks like he was robbed.”
This wasn’t a robbery. Maybe he hadn’t carried any of those items on him, not wanting his identity to be discovered. Or maybe someone else had gotten rid of those items for him. “How long will it take the coroner to do an autopsy?”
“We use the county coroner,” the young trooper replied. “He has a wide area, so he’s pretty busy.”
Dalton cursed. “I may need to have a federal coroner do the autopsy. I have to know what bullet killed him.”
“What caliber?” she asked.
He shook his head. “What bullet—because it could have been mine.” But just because the hired killer was dead didn’t mean that Elizabeth was out of danger. Dalton had to find out who had hired the man—which might be easier if he knew who the hell he was. “I also need to get his fingerprints and DNA in AFIS and find out who he is.”
“Call the FBI lab,” Jared Bell said. He had come along with Dalton, while Blaine had stayed with Elizabeth and the child to protect them.
Maybe it was his bruises from the fight in the dining room or maybe it was being away from Elizabeth and Lizzie, but Dalton physically ached. He hated leaving their protection to anyone but himself—no matter how much he trusted and respected Blaine Campbell.
“We need to put a rush on this.” The profiler had admitted to Dalton that he didn’t think these attacks were related to his open serial-killer case. But he would want to rule out any possibility that it could be related—that this could be the killer he had sought for so long.
“You don’t know this is part of your federal investigation,” the young trooper dared to challenge him.
Dalton never had time for jurisdictional games. “This person might be the one who attacked Trooper Littlefield,” he said. “I figured you would all want to know that as soon as possible, too.”
The young trooper jerked her head in a quick nod. “Of course. Of course, I didn’t realize...”
The older trooper, searching the room with her, snorted. “What did you think—we’re having a crime wave in this area? Of course it’s related. The only other crimes we’ve had in this area before Agent Reyes found the bride in the trunk was that murder-suicide a few months back.”
Dalton’s blood chilled. He didn’t believe in coincidences. Elizabeth just might be right about her friends. He met Jared Bell’s gaze, and the other man nodded. He had his suspicions, too. Elizabeth was insistent that her friends’ deaths were murder—just murder—and now someone was trying to murder her. To cover up a crime already committed?
Maybe the attempts on Elizabeth’s life had less to do with her than with her friends. The little girl couldn’t lose her, the way she had already lost her parents.
Dalton couldn’t lose her, either. But he was afraid that he would. Eventually. He would keep her alive and find out who was trying to kill her. But he couldn’t keep her from remembering her fiancé and returning to him. Unless Tom Wilson was the person who’d hired the hit man.
Chapter Sixteen
Pain radiated throughout Elizabeth’s head, blurring her vision. It was as if she had been struck all over again. The throbbing was intense, echoing inside her skull. Was it because of the concussion?
Or was it because her memory was returning? Because along with those memories came pain. It was like losing Kenneth and Patricia all over again.
Or was it because she’d had another sleepless night? Because she was falling in love with a man who wouldn’t stay? Since the break-in, she hadn’t seen him. Shortly after talking to her, he had left the house with Jared Bell—leaving Blaine Campbell to protect her.
“Are you okay?” Agent Campbell asked as he jostled the little girl on his lean hip. Baby Lizzie giggled now. She’d been crying earlier—tired and cranky from having her sleep disrupted.
Maybe that was why Elizabeth’s head was pounding. She had been rocking the little girl in the nursery, but it had only intensified her pain and little Lizzie’s crying. So she held the rocking chair still while Agent Campbell held the toddler.
“I’ll be okay,” she replied. When Dalton returned.
If Dalton returned.
“Thank you,” she added. “Not just for protecting me but for helping with the baby.”
“I’m happy to help out,” he said. “Keeping you safe and helping with this little princess.” He’d switched the bouncing to rocking in his arms, and now Lizzie’s curly-haired head bobbed as she fell asleep.
“You’re a natural,” she said.
“My wife and I have a son,” he shared with a father’s pride.
She remembered Dalton’s horror over being mistaken for a groom. He probably felt the same way about fatherhood as he did marriage. He was probably just as averse. But she understood that he was devoted to his job—to avenge the loss of his grandmother and to make her proud.
“He’s only eight weeks old,” Blaine continued, “so quite a bit smaller than this young lady. But with the way he eats, I’m sure he’ll catch up soon.”
“They grow up fast,” Elizabeth said. She’d been gone less than a week, but the curly-haired toddler seemed so much bigger to her. So much older. She was growing up so fast. How soon before she forgot her parents?
She had already started calling Elizabeth Momma. She had replaced Patricia in her mind. But Elizabeth would make sure that the little girl always knew who her real mother was. She would keep their memories alive for Kenneth and Patricia. But she could only do that if she were still alive.
A door creaked—reminding her of the noises that had awakened her the night before. Then the stairs creaked as someone began to climb them. There was another intruder in the house. Agent Campbell pass
ed her the toddler as he pulled his gun from his holster.
“It’s me,” a deep voice called out.
The sleepy girl lifted her head from Elizabeth’s shoulder. She already recognized Dalton’s voice. Her face brightened, and she smiled at him as he stepped inside the nursery.
Elizabeth wanted to smile, too, but she held her breath instead. He had left the house for a reason—to follow a lead. “What was it?” she asked. “Did you find him?”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned the screen toward her, displaying the picture of a man’s face. His eyes were closed, his face ashen.
She gasped. “He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Was there another struggle?”
He shook his head. “No, the hotel clerk found him dead in his room. I think he might be who I struggled with last night.”
But his deep voice held a hint of doubt.
Blaine must have picked up on it, too, because he asked, “You’re not certain?”
Dalton shrugged. “I thought he was bigger. Taller. Broader.” He sighed. “But it was late. And I was tired.”
Which was her fault. She had kept him awake two nights in a row—making love.
“Do you recognize him?” he asked her.
“I wasn’t down here when you struggled with him,” she reminded him. Embarrassment heated her face. She had been upstairs in her room—frozen with fear—unable to help him or herself.
“I don’t mean from last night,” he said and clarified his earlier question by adding, “Do you recognize him at all?”
She shrugged now. “I don’t know. I remember some things.” Like little Lizzie and Kenneth and Patricia and the house. But she didn’t remember her own fiancé. “But there’s so much I don’t remember.”
“Could he be the man who shot at you after he ran you and Wilson off the road?”
“I was upside down.” Her head pressed against the roof of the car. “And he had his hood pulled tight around his face,” she said. “It could be him.” She peered closer at the screen. “But I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay,” Agent Campbell said. He offered her assurance, while she felt Dalton’s frustration.
Was he upset with her? With her inability to help at all? He wasn’t the only one; she was frustrated, too. She wanted her memories back—all of them. She wanted her life back, and the danger gone.
But she knew if that happened, Dalton would be gone, too.
“I got some other news on the way over here,” Dalton said. “Trooper Littlefield’s out of the coma.”
“That’s great news!” Agent Campbell exclaimed. “He’s a nice guy and a really good trooper.”
A memory flashed into Elizabeth’s mind—of the uniform and her resentment of it. “He investigated Kenneth’s and Patricia’s murders,” she said as the memory became clearer. “I talked to him before.”
While she was relieved that he was all right now, she understood why she had been suspicious and resentful of him even when she hadn’t remembered him. “He didn’t listen to me, though. He didn’t look deeper into their deaths.”
Dalton shook his head. “I spoke to the officer in charge of the investigation. It wasn’t Trooper Littlefield.”
“There were two of them,” she conceded. “An older officer and Trooper Littlefield. I talked to both of them. But neither of them listened to me.”
“You remember all that?” Agent Campbell asked skeptically. He looked at her with suspicion now, as if he wondered if she had faked the amnesia.
She sighed. “Yes. I remember—like I remember little Lizzie.”
“But you don’t remember Tom Wilson,” Dalton reminded her.
She shrugged. “I don’t know why. Maybe I remember Kenneth and Patricia so clearly because I’m so upset about the injustice. Nobody listened to me then about their deaths and nobody’s listening now.” Frustration overwhelmed her, and tears stung her eyes and nose. “Their names will never be cleared, their real killer never found.”
“I’m listening,” Dalton assured her. Over the little girl’s head, his dark gaze held hers. “And I’ll talk to Littlefield about the investigation.”
She snorted in derision. “What investigation? There really wasn’t one.”
“There will be now,” Dalton said. He turned toward his friend. “Can you stay for a while longer?”
Blaine nodded. “Yes, but I want to talk to you before you leave.” The other agent stepped outside the room.
Dalton didn’t follow him right away. Instead, he stepped closer to her and reached out a hand. He patted little Lizzie’s curly head and skimmed a finger along her cheek. “She’s asleep. I hope last night wasn’t too traumatic for her.” But as he said it, he watched Elizabeth’s face.
She didn’t know if he was referring to the break-in or to her falling in love with him. Did he know how she felt about him? Did it show on her face? Her love? Her longing?
“She’s been through a lot,” Elizabeth replied.
“I know,” he said. And again, she thought he was referring to her and not the child. “Too much.”
“Do you know who he is?” she asked. “The man found in the motel?”
“A recently paroled former car thief,” Dalton said. “His prints were on file. Ronnie Hoover worked as a parking attendant in the garage where Mr. Schultz kept his car.”
“The building looked familiar to me,” she said. “I may have an apartment there, too.” But she remembered this house better. “That might be how he grabbed me.”
“You think he could just be a random stalker?” he asked.
“Clearly, you don’t think so,” she said as she heard the doubt in his voice.
He shrugged. “You could have picked up a random stalker. But I don’t think you’ve even spent that much time in Chicago since becoming little Elizabeth’s guardian.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, either—not from what I remember and not from what Marta said. So you don’t think this is random?”
“No. But I will figure it out.” He made her another promise.
But all the promises he’d made had been about her memory and her attacker, about giving her life back to her—not about sharing it. Once he figured everything out, he would leave. Just as he turned to leave now.
But before he walked out into the hall to join his friend, he leaned down and he brushed a soft kiss across her mouth. Her heart shifted, swelling with the love she felt for him. A love she doubted that he would ever return...
* * *
WHY HADN’T TROOPER LITTLEFIELD identified her? When Dalton had found her in the trunk, the trooper had acted as if he’d never seen her before. But Littlefield had seen her; he had argued with her, if Dalton knew Elizabeth at all.
And Dalton knew Elizabeth.
She was strong. And stubborn and determined to prove that her friend hadn’t killed his wife and then himself. The lawyer in her—even though her specialty was corporate law—would have had her arguing her case, proving her point.
She would have been memorable. Dalton knew that he would never forget her. And probably never get over her.
He drew in a deep breath as the thought jabbed his ribs with a twinge of pain.
“You okay?” Trooper Littlefield asked him as he opened his eyes and focused on Dalton’s face.
Dalton chuckled. “You’re the one just coming out of a coma,” he said. Actually, he’d worried the man might have slipped back into it when he’d stepped into his hospital room and found him asleep. “Are you okay?”
The trooper lifted a hand to his heavily bandaged head. “Good thing it was already shaved, huh? I don’t have to worry about my hair.”
“No, you don’t,” Dalton agreed.
The man’s pale face flushed with color. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I screwed up, letting the guy get the jump on me again—like when he stole my car.”
Dalton had thought it odd that the trooper had
left his car down the block. Had that been a mistake or something else? But if the trooper had had some type of arrangement with the paroled car thief, why had he called Dalton to the scene at all?
“It’s a good thing you didn’t trust me to protect her,” the trooper added.
“I trusted you,” Dalton said. Then.
“You were right,” Littlefield continued, “that he was waiting for another opportunity to get to her.”
“He got to you instead,” Dalton said. “You’re lucky to be alive.” And if Littlefield and Ronnie Hoover had been working together, why had the criminal turned on him? Not that that hadn’t happened before. According to the old friends Dalton had put away, he had turned on them.
Littlefield shuddered. “The doctors are amazed that I came out of the coma.”
“Is your memory intact?” Dalton asked.
“Yes,” Littlefield replied. “I’ll be able to identify the bastard, too. I saw his face in the mirror right before he hit me.”
Dalton held out his phone with the picture displayed.
Littlefield’s breath escaped in a shocked gasp. “He’s dead?”
Dalton nodded.
“Yeah, that’s him,” he replied. “What happened to him?”
“I’m still waiting to hear from the Bureau coroner,” he replied. He didn’t know for certain that his bullet had killed the man.
Littlefield nodded. “That’s good that you’re not relying on Doc Brouwer. He’s stretched too thin, as it is.”
“Is he the one who investigated the deaths of Kenneth and Patricia Cunningham?”
Littlefield tensed and cursed. “That’s who she is. The amnesia victim—she’s related to those people. I remember her now.”
“Elizabeth Schroeder,” Dalton said. “She’s a corporate lawyer from Chicago.” And the guardian of a small child and someone’s fiancée. As she’d already pointed out, no person was just one thing. But Dalton. He was only an FBI special agent. “We already learned her identity.”
“Her memory returned?”
Not all of it. But he nodded. “She definitely remembers her friends.”
“She doesn’t believe it was a murder-suicide,” Littlefield recalled.
